Not new, but did you know? Toronto library e-lends not just e-books

It’s been around for a while but not everyone knows about it. All the books, audio books, magazines, movies, and music you want are free and online at the Toronto Public Library. Borrow what you like and return it, just like you would at a library, but virtually. The only thing you need? A library card, if you don’t already have one.

Libraries in the GTA and around the world have evolved over the years, just like every other entity, to digitize their content and services. It’s no secret that we live in a digital generation (you are reading this online, aren’t you?), so libraries have embraced e-lending to satisfy their audience.

For those who are in love with books (like myself), nothing can substitute the feeling of holding a book in your hand, flipping the pages, having stacks of books on your bedside table, thumbing through titles at the library, or rummaging through book sales. But others are proud e-book converts, and many do both.

If you are one of these converts, you should know, if you don’t already, that you don’t have to pay for e-books, or any music or movies for that matter.

“It’s all free with your library card,” Maria Cipriano, senior collections specialist for electronic resources at the Toronto Public Library, said in a telephone interview. Cipriano added that you don’t have to live in Toronto to get one. If you go to school or work in the city, you can also get a library card.

Some many e-book titles, so little time

OverDrive, with its vast selection of e-books and audio books, is the biggest and most popular service for the Toronto library. OverDrive is a vendor that enables e-book lending for libraries around the world. Through this service alone, the library did 3.1 million downloads last year.

“Our biggest growth has been in our electronic resources in the last couple of years. We are the No. 1 library for downloads in the world,” Cipriano boasts.

With OverDrive, you can sign out 30 items at one time. The items are returned automatically at the end of the loan period, which with this service is 21 days – same as using the physical library – so you don’t have to worry about late fees. However, you can return certain items early if you have reached your checkout limit. Click here to get started with e-books.

With OverDrive, there is a huge database of titles that you always find something available, but you may have to wait for some items that are popular.

“You can never run out of material to read on OverDrive,” Cipriano says.

If you already have a library card, the next step is to get the OverDrive app on your smartphone or tablet. Then, you just download the e-book. It works on the Kobo and Kindle tablet too, but not the Kindle e-reader. For other dedicated e-readers, you have to download the content on your computer first and then transfer it to your device.

There’s more than just e-books

E-books and e-audio books are a small part of the Toronto Public Library’s online offerings. You can also get your digital hands on the latest magazines with e-magazine services Zinio and Flipster; borrow digital music, movies and comics with Hoopla; French e-audio books with MaBiblioNumérique, and e-learning with Lynda.com.

You need an Internet or wireless connection (preferably wireless due to the large files) to download the content, but not to actually use it. So you can load up your device and have everything you need to entertain yourself on your commute or vacation.

“Torontonians are so lucky, they’re spoiled for choice with all this free premium content that they have available. A lot of people still don’t know about it. People know about the e-books but not some of the other stuff,” Cipriano says.

The borrowing time varies depending on the vendor and its lending model. While the loan period is 21 days for e-books and e-audio books, it is three days for movies and television shows and seven days for digital music with Hoopla. And you can only borrow eight items per month. Whereas with Zinio, the Toronto Public Library states on its website that you borrow as many magazines you want and you can keep them as long as you want.

“They only complaint that people who use this have is that they don’t have enough hours in the day to read all the stuff they want to read,” Cipriano laughs.

E-book lending is not new

Providing e-books to library patrons is not new – libraries have been doing it for a while now. The Toronto library has been offering e-books since 1999 with what was then called Net Library. It launched OverDrive in 2007 but the content was limited, Cipriano acknowledged. Now, it has everything on the best-seller lists and more.

“We are able to get all sorts of things that print people can’t get,” she says, such as e-book shorts, novellas, British books, items only available in e-format, and so on. The service has become so popular that last month, 46,000 unique Toronto library patrons checked out material on OverDrive.

Libraries are here to stay

With the growing popularity of borrowing e-books and multimedia, it makes old-school library-users like myself worry about the longevity of physical libraries. Thankfully, Cipriano says people like me don’t have to worry – they’re not going anywhere.

“There’s been resurgence again in print,” she says, adding that the e-book service compliments the print books. “Print is not dead.”

“People still come to the library for so many reasons. This is just giving people more options. If a library is closed, our e-services are open 24-7.”